"Back from the Dead!"— For a man who'd been drawing them for over two decades, Jack Kirby's early Marvel Age comics look like the work of a man in the grip of a crisis of confidence. Whether he'd been ground down by years of churning out formulaic monster stories, sexless adolescent romance and forgettables like his failed newspaper golf strip, On the Green with Peter Parr; or whether it was the ignominy of having to return, cap in hand, to a company run by his former office boy Stan Lee, Kirby's first Hulks and Fantastic Fours feel restrained, low in energy and self-belief. Whatever the reason, by 1965 Kirby's comics once again looked like the work of a man who'd had his Weetabix — his figures were bolder, his plots had momentum and his stories had rediscovered their ambition. His Hulk spends much of this first comeback issue leaping across the globe, leaving the stale plots of previous months in the dust. Lee and Kirby might as well have provided a signpost: You are now leaving Ditkoville. GOOD.